‘I’ve been reading the essays of Sir William Cornwallis.’
‘Ah him,’ said Maxfield. ‘The English Montaigne. Not much cop.’
‘He was unlucky, wedged between Montaigne and Shakespeare.’
‘A plagiarist, I’d say.’
Adam said smoothly, ‘In the eruption of a secular self in early modern times, I’d say he earns a place. He didn’t read much French. He must have known Florio’s Montaigne translation as well as a version that’s now lost. As for Florio, he knew Ben Jonson, so there’s a good chance he met Shakespeare.’
‘And,’ said Maxfield, for his competitive dander was up, ‘Shakespeare raided Montaigne for Hamlet.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Adam contradicted his host too carelessly, I thought. ‘The textual evidence is thin. If you want to go that route, I’d say The Tempest was a better bet. Gonzalo.’
‘Ah! Nice Gonzalo, the hopeless would-be governor. “No kind of traffic would I admit, no name of magistrate.” Then something something, “Contract, succession, bourn, bound of something something, vineyard, none.”’
Adam continued fluently. ‘“No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oiclass="underline" no occupation, all men idle, all.”’
‘And in Montaigne?’
‘By way of Florio he says the savages “hath no kind of traffic” and he says, “no name of magistrate”, then “no occupation but idle”, and then, “no use of wine, corn, or metal”.’
Maxfield said, ‘All men idle – that’s what we want. That Bill Shakespeare was a bloody thief.’
‘The best of thieves,’ said Adam.
‘You’re a Shakespeare scholar.’
Adam shook his head. ‘You asked me what I’d been reading.’
Maxfield was in a sudden, extravagant mood. He turned to his daughter. ‘I like him. He’ll do!’
I felt a touch of proprietorial pride in Adam, but mostly I was aware that so far, by implication, I wouldn’t do.
Christine reappeared to tell us that our lunch was set out in the dining room. Maxfield said, ‘Go and fill your plates and come back. It’ll break my neck to get out of this chair. I’m not eating.’
He waved away Miranda’s objections. As she and I were leaving the room, Adam said he wasn’t hungry either.
Next door, we were alone in a gloomy dining room – oak-panelled, with oil paintings of pale serious men in ruffs.
I said, ‘I’m not making much of an impression.’
‘Nonsense. He adores you. But you need some time alone together.’
We returned with the cold cuts and salad we had brought, which we balanced on our knees. Christine poured the wine I had chosen. Maxfield’s glass was in his hand and already empty. This was his lunch. I didn’t like to drink at this time of day, but he was watching me closely as the housekeeper presented the tray and I thought I’d appear dull to refuse. The conversation we had interrupted continued. Once again, I had no point of access to it.
‘What I’m telling you is what he said.’ Maxfield’s tone was edging towards his irritable mode. ‘It’s a famous poem with a plain sexual meaning and no one gets it. She’s lying on the bed, she’s welcoming him and ready, he’s hanging back, and then he’s on her…’
‘Daddy!’
‘But he’s not up to the job. A no-show. What does it say? “Quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning if I lacked anything.”’
Adam was smiling. ‘Good try, sir. If it was Donne, perhaps, at a stretch. But it’s Herbert. A conversation with God, who’s the same thing as love.’
‘How about “taste my meat”?’
Adam was even more amused. ‘Herbert would be deeply offended. I agree, the poem is sensual. Love is a banquet. God is generous and sweet and forgiving. Against the Pauline tradition maybe. In the end, the poet is seduced. He gladly becomes a guest at the feast of God’s love. “So I did sit and eat.”’
Maxfield thumped his pillows and said to Miranda, ‘He stands his ground!’
At that moment, he pivoted towards me. ‘And Charlie. What’s your ground?’
‘Electronics.’
I thought it sounded wry after what had gone before. But as Maxfield held out his glass towards his daughter for a refill he murmured, ‘There’s a surprise.’
As Christine was collecting the plates, Miranda said, ‘I think I’ve eaten too much.’ She stood and went behind her father’s chair and rested her hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m going to show Adam around the house, if that’s all right.’
Maxfield nodded gloomily. Now he would have to spend some uninteresting minutes with me. Once Adam and Miranda had left the room, I felt abandoned. I was the one she should have been showing around. The special places she and Mariam shared in the house and garden were my interests, not Adam’s. Maxfield extended the wine bottle towards me. I felt I had no choice but to crouch forwards and hold out my glass.
He said, ‘Alcohol agrees with you.’
‘I don’t usually touch it at lunchtime.’
He thought this was amusing, and I was relieved to be making a little progress. I saw his point. If you liked wine, why not drink it any time of day? Miranda had told me he liked a glass of champagne at breakfast on Sundays.
‘I thought,’ Maxfield said, ‘that it might interfere with your…’ He gave a limp wave.
I assumed he was speaking of drink-driving. The new laws were indeed severe. I said, ‘We drink a lot of this white Bordeaux at home. A blend of Sémillon is a relief after all the undiluted Sauvignon Blanc that’s going about.’
Maxfield was affable. ‘Couldn’t agree more. Who wouldn’t prefer the taste of flowers to the taste of minerals.’
I looked up to see if I was being mocked. Apparently not.
‘But look, Charlie. I’m interested in you. I’ve got some questions.’
Pathetically, I now warmed to him.
He said, ‘You must find all this very strange.’
‘You mean Adam. Yes, but it’s amazing what you can get used to.’
Maxfield stared into his wine glass, contemplating his next question. I became aware of a low grinding noise from his orthopaedic chair. Some inbuilt device was warming or massaging his back.
He said, ‘I wanted to talk to you about feelings.’
‘Yes?’
‘You know what I mean.’
I waited.
With his head cocked, he was gazing at me with a look of intense curiosity, or puzzlement. I felt flattered, and concerned that I might not measure up.
‘Let’s talk about beauty,’ he said in a tone that suggested no change of subject. ‘What have you seen or heard that you’d regard as beautiful?’
‘Miranda, obviously. She’s a very beautiful woman.’
‘She certainly is. What do you feel about her beauty?’
‘I feel very much in love with her.’
He paused to take this in. ‘What does Adam make of your feelings?’
‘There was some difficulty,’ I said. ‘But I think he’s accepted things as they are.’
‘Really?’
There are occasions when one notices the motion of an object before one sees the thing itself. Instantly, the mind does a little colouring in, drawing on expectations, or probabilities. Whatever fits best. Something in the grass by a pond looks just like a frog, then resolves into a leaf stirred by the wind. In abstract, this was one of those moments. A thought darted past me, or through me, then it was gone, and I couldn’t trust what I thought I had seen.